The situation in El Salvador is getting worse by the day. The country is quickly becoming the murder capital of the world, in part because of the gangs and government at war in the cities.
On two sides of the coin are the MS13 and 18th Street Gang, who fight against each other, but the police has also waged a war against them. The police do daily raids and arrest anyone suspected of being in a gang, even if they haven’t committed a crime. This is due to a new law that was introduced that gives the police the power to arrest people under a “terrorist” accusations.
The problem is, these gangs are recruiting kids as young as 10 years old, so their roots are getting deeper into the future generations, with no signs of it ending any time soon.
Many gangs use extortion to gain control of certain areas, threatening street workers and telling them they will kill family members to all those who don’t pay them a monthly fee.
There are many areas in the country that the police can’t even enter because it’s that dangerous. People that live in those places didn’t want to talk to any cameras in fear of their lives. The gangs are under so much pressure that they won’t hesitate to kill innocent bystandards, anyone involved in another gang or use violence to initiate new gang members.
The only time the murder rates went down was when they established a truce, but once that broke down, murders have skyrocketed. Now you see police brutality and excessive force used against “gang members” and it’s making the war harder to stop because both MS13 and 18th Street Gang are reacting to how the police treat them. From what the gang members in jail said, they just want a means to succeed in life and not get caught up in the life without being targeted.
Watch it all go down in the documentary about El Salvador above.